Rannok glanced around the room, half-expecting someone to come rescue him as Rosa and Sasha made their way out the door. The edges of his wings fluffed a bit as he watched them through the window of the sink. His eyes slid to the child sitting at the table, and his heart jumped into his throat. 

How was he supposed to take care of a kid? He could barely take care of himself, let alone a child. 

It was going to be a very long day.

"Father says you came here because Mother's too cheap to hire a real servant," the girl said, mouth filled almost completely with porridge.

"Uh..." 

"Is that why she never buys me toys at the market? Father buys me toys all the time. Big ones." Adelaide smiled, and a little bit of porridge leaked from her mouth. 

Rannok made a face and glanced around for a washcloth. "I don't know." 

"Who is that other girl that was here? Is she Rosa's friend?" Adelaide asked. She mushed her spoon into her porridge, and Rannok bristled at the squelching sound it made. She was getting food all over the table. He could see flecks of it stuck to the hardwood.

"No, she's mine," Rannok muttered under his breath as he took a cloth from the sink and wiped off where she'd spilled. At least he thought they were friends. He didn't know anymore, and he didn't want to talk about it, especially not with a child. "Can you quit doing that?"

"Did she come from the same place as you?" Adelaide replied, not seeming to notice that he'd asked her to stop. She flicked at her spoon. More drops of liquid splattered across the table.

"No, she's from Horizon," Rannok replied. His teeth ground together. 

"Oh. Is she your girlfriend? Rupert said he had a girlfriend once. Except she didn't like it and hit him in the nose because he tried to steal her bear. Teacher said it was mean, but Rupert doesn't know how to share his toys."

"No," Rannok replied, not bothering to ask about the stupid childhood game she'd started babbling on about. No one had told him what he was supposed to do with this kid, or how he was supposed to entertain her. How did one even entertain kids her age? "How old are you anyway?"

"Six," Adelaide replied, not skipping a beat. She pushed the bowl away from her. "I don't want this, it's icky. Can I have a cookie instead?"

Rannok wondered if the child ever stopped talking, or if she was just going to play with her food forever while running her mouth so fast it made him need to squeeze his eyes shut and breathe heavily. "No."

"You're not any fun," she answered, folding her little arms while her eyebrows creased into a scowl. Rannok picked the almost-empty bowls up off the table and placed them in the sink. He'd thought his had tasted fine, but then again he wasn't six years old. 

He remembered Hael screaming and making faces as his mother tried to feed him one thing or another he didn't like, and his heart squeezed a bit. He'd be ten, now. Old enough to start learning how to shear the sheep and run the books with their father. That was if the villagers had let them stay.

He grabbed the first cloth he saw before pushing it across the table at her. "Wipe your face, there's oatmeal on it."

Adelaide grabbed the cloth in her chubby fingers and went to wipe her mouth on it. Instead, it balled in her fingers as she smeared the oatmeal into her hair. Rannok sighed loudly before grabbing it from her.

"No, you're making a bigger mess," he said, wiping the corners of her mouth with it. There was still a sheen of drool across the girl's cheeks as he swiped bits of soggy oats out of her hair. He'd forgotten how dirty little children were. 

"I can do it myself," she whined, grabbing at the cloth before he finished and tossed it in the sink. Her little mouth turned downwards into a frown.

"I'm sure you can, but I don't want to spend all day in the kitchen. What am I supposed to do with you anyway?"

"I dunno. Rosa's too busy to play with me. Can we go to the park?" Adelaide responded as she went to clamber out of her stool. It slid across the stone floor before her arm swiped across the wooden table. It caught the edge of a wooden basket of apples, sending them scattering across the floor. "Oops."

Rannok felt a headache forming between his eyes. He bent down and picked two of them up off the floor, struggling not to apply so much pressure they bruised. The girl tapped her foot on the floor for a moment before reaching out and tugging on his wing. Rannok yelped before tearing it out of her grip.

"Ow! What the hell?" he snapped, catching himself just in time not to jerk the wing out of the child's hand with so much force she toppled. The last thing he needed was Pirya's brat learning a few fun new words. Adelaide's eyes went wide, like a cat that had just spotted a beetle.

"You said a curse word," she said, her mouth widening until all her teeth showed. "Mother says you aren't supposed to say those kinds of words."

Heat rushed to Rannok's face, more out of annoyance than embarrassment, as he finished gathering the apples off the floor. "I'm an adult."

"Mother aways tells Father not to say those kinds of words," she said, crossing her arms and smiling like she'd caught the beetle. "She always gets mad at him."

"Good for her," Rannok responded. He placed the basket back onto the table and dumped an armful of apples into it. "Do you want to go outside now, or something?" Maybe it will shut you up for a while. 

"I should tell Mother you said a bad word," Adelaide said, folding her arms and smirking. The light danced in her eyes. Rannok tried to ignore her sticky cheeks and fingers, then ran a hand down his face again. He knew this game. Kana played it all the time, when they were children. The 'do what I want or else' game. 

Normally he wouldn't have minded, but the thought of talking to Pirya made the hair on his neck raise. "Fine, what do you want?"

"Give me a cookie," she said, pointing a fat finger at one of the high shelves. "And don't tell Rosa."

"Fine," Rannok muttered under his breath. He swung open the cabinet and reached his hand inside for whatever sweet it was she was after. A heavy weight rested itself on his wing. When he turned around, she had her hand around it again, but softer this time at least.

"Can you let go of that?" he said, shaking it out of her grip. "It's rude."

"Oh," the girl said, like she'd just realized something serious. She took a step back from him. "Sorry." She bit her lip and stared at her hands. Her little cheeks flushed. Rannok rolled his eyes and turned back toward the cabinet. His hand fumbled about inside until it closed around a metal tin. He pulled it out and opened it up, and the smell of molasses smacked him across the face. Finally.

"Do people tease you because of your wings?" she asked. Her voice was small and meek, and Rannok turned around again. She'd stuffed her hands into the pockets of her dress. "Mother said it's not nice to stare but I can't help it."

Rannok's eyebrows raised a bit, and he shrugged before pulling out one of the stools and settling into it. He could still feel the punches and taste the tang of blood in his mouth. He could still feel their arms binding him. But that wasn't something you told a child.

"Sometimes." He opened up the tin and fished out one of the cookies. They really did smell good. He wondered if Rosa had made them. 

"That's not very nice of them," Adelaide said quietly.

"No," Rannok replied. He handed her a cookie, then took one for himself before sealing the tin up and shoving it into the corner. "It's not."